The Brit 2204 is one of my favourite amps in the Helix. I used to own an original JCM 800 with a 4X12 with Greenbacks and the one in the Helix sounds quite similar to my old amp in some of my recordings.
the master is set to 8/10 on the default setting and the treble at 10. i think most of the people who complain about the 2204 are people who have never tried to record an actual JCM800. if you stand in front of it at 105db, yeah cranked master is going to sound awesome. its so loud that there's no way it could sound bad. but recorded at that kind of setting, you're getting a flubby bottom end. people set up the helix 2204 according to ancient regurgitated guitar forum wisdom and memes, which, just like on the real life amp, doesn't actually sound good. drop the master, get that treble in check, drop the bias a bit and there's a good JCM800 sound. sonic drives studios made a blind test, and as always when people don't know which one the helix is suddenly noone's complaining about how bad it sounds.... helix in general gives you pretty much the same amount of control that the amp it models does. and some amps are harder to dial in. and helix gives you enough rope to hang yourself with on those amps where other modellers limit flexibility
It's my main amp in helix. I didn't even know it's hated in the community. I use Vermin Dist before it (as I prefer it over the Ratatouille one) and 3sigma blackstar cab after and the sound is giving me exactly what i wanted, which is this dirty, a little bit muddy sound but somehow quite selective at the same time. Great amp sim!
Sorry but the tone of the real amp is muffled, maybe there's something making the amp sound darker than it should be? There's a big difference, very different of what we see in other comparisons. Maybe compare to other reliable sims like Nolly Amp 2 (knowing that this is practically 1:1 of a 2203) to clear things up?
Through my stuff (JBL 305p, SSL2 if that matters) the amp sounded really good. I love the Helix but it didn't really do the thing. Dialing in Jason's final settings and playing with a borrowed strat-like object with a hotrails in the bridge didn't match his sound, but switching to a Gretsch with Filtertrons got pretty close. It's been so long since I played through a JCM800 I can't really comment on that, but I do like the sound of Jason's Marshall compared to the Helix on this one.
@@saddestchord7622 yeah, it's not that the tone is bad it's just lacks some high end expected from a 2204 at these settings. The Brit 2204 model is not the best Marshall out there but in this test, in my opinion, the helix model isn't the problem.
isn't the DI out already with an emulated speaker eq on it? at least that's what i remember reading in the handbook for my sv20. would explain the drastic difference in fizziness, if the IR stage is doubled up that way.
You would think so by what is written in the manual, but it in fact is not. I tested this two ways before releasing the video. I did the test using the DI Line Out of the Marshall amp and I also recorded the samples directly out of the speaker output using my IK Multimedia Tonex Capture box, which allows you to take a DI from the speaker output before passing the audio to the cabinet. The results were identical. So the IR stage is not in fact doubled as you mention here. It seems that Marshall have mistakenly said the DI out is speaker emulated whin it is not.
Just in case there is still any doubt about this or anyone doesn't believe my findings, watch the official Marshall video at the 2:42 mark. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GvuQPnqMktc.html
I don't like it before I try to put the gain down ( 1.6 to 2 or max 3 ) volume up .. a kinky boost : 2 - on - on just before the amp .. a minautor also : 3 - 5 - 7.6 for lead sound .. and it do the job perfectly .. Sorry for my English ( I'm a french helix user )
Thanks for sharing. It's kind of news to me that the Brit 2204 is a maligned amp model. I discovered it fairly recently in the Stomp and quite like it!
I have the SC20H and the HX Stomp and regularly try to mimic each other. The model on Helix appears to have substantially more gain than the SC20H and I noticed as well that to get them close you need to cut the gain on the Helix model by about half of what the real amp is running. Not a 1 for 1 match, but close enough to work with for sure.
It took me over a year to dial this amp in because it doesn't sound as tight on the low end like the real one. But now I have found my favorite settings. The power amp settings a very important on this amp model.
As I just got a Helix myself I'm going through tons of videos. Having tried the 2204 today, I myself found it unusable, not because I think it didn't sound like a real one, I haven't played a real JCM-800 in decades so I would not even try to compare it to a distant memory. In the Helix 2204, it's not the fizz that bothered me, it's the very woolly/muddy low mids. It sounds "confused", unfocused like it distorts in the low mids in a very unpleasant way. The 2204 here had the same although a bit less than in my preset probably because I used a different cab but it was still there in your demo. The real amp you compared it to didn't have it, not at all. In the Helix, The Revv Generator red doesn't have it either (I have the pedal and heard the real amp often... Line 6 nailed that one), the Placator Dirty doesn't have it, the SLO-100 doesn't have it either (all through the same cab in the Helix: the V30 Uberkab). That low mids thing the 2204 has is the same to me as some of these old small Fender and Gibson amps a lot of people love, they often have that low mid to lows weirdness like the amp or speaker cannot handle the signal going through it and it just kind of rumbles or distorts in the low mids (words fail me today ;). My Fender reference is my old trusty red knobs Twin which was a loud, high headroom clean but with no mud or harshness, just the bell-like chime I associate with Fender cleans. Took pedals like a champ. I also played a Valvestate 8080 (not sure of the exact model number, it was a 2 channel 2x12 combo) in the 90s and the crunch channel didn't have that low mids build-up but the high gain channel kind of did. So it may be something in the preamp's gain staging of higher gain Marshalls? All that to say I'm not sure what happened with their JCM-800 model but I agree it doesn't sound even close to what I expected an 800 to sound like. They should probably model a more stock 2203 from scratch. But I don't minds as there's plenty of other amps in the Helix that do higher gain way better than a JCM-800 ever did. The Revv, the Friedman and Soldano are early favorites and all wipe the floor with the 2204 if you ask me ;). I need to spend time with the VH4 next. Too bad they don't have an Diezel Herbert model too, it was one of the only two high gain amps I liked in my old PodXT (the Ubershall being the other) and having heard demos of the real thing, I'd love to get one in the Helix!
Ok, I've been reading on this and experimenting. I've been looking for "my" higher gain tone in the Helix since I've got mine and have settled mostly on the Rev Gen Red. I have the G4 pedal so I'm familiar with that tone and the Helix model sounds close to both the pedal I own and demos of the real Generator 120 Red channel demos I've heard. But after reading on the 2204 in the Helix I finally got the model to sound a lot closer to what I think an emulation of a real 800 should sound like by doing something I saw in the first part of your sound clips in your video where you had the master very low. That cleans up the muddiness of the amp A LOT. I came across this in a forum thread (which got me to now revisit this video) where the person suggested lowering the master to 2.2 (I have mine in my test at 2.0, you had it at 1.0 in your first 2204 sound clip) then crank the gain up high and push the amp with a boost (the Minotaur worked best for me). Now THERE was that 80s 800 tone finally! Much tighter tone and it also eliminated a lot of the glassy weird sound on pick attack many amps have but that the stock Line 6 preset of the 2204 has like 3 times more than any other model I tried. In the third part of your clip with the master maxxed, even the real amp starts to "fart" a little and have that glassy pick attack thing but the model in your clip has it even more than the amp and with my own guitar even more so (I play a Strat with passive pickups). The main issue with the 2204 in the Helix seems to be that master as the block by default has the master at 8.0, gain at 2.5, Bias at 7.0 (which makes it all even worse), treble at 10. (!!!!) and presence at 7.1. Can you say harsh! With those settings it's really truly unusable to me and a muddy mess in the bass and low mids. I will tweak more later but, with my Strat, I have gain at 8.0, treble at 5.0, presence at 5.5, master at 2.0, bias at 5.0 and sag down to 3.0. I put the Minautor in front, gain at 3.0, tone at 5.0 and level at 8.0 and now it saturates like I expect an 800 to. Like I said in my previous comment, I played a friends 800 a few times back then but never owned one myself so I never spent any quality time with a real one. I was myself "comparing" the 2204 to all the great recorded 800 tones we've heard and remember from the past (and not an amp in a room experience for me) and I just could not get it there until I got that master down to 2.0 and pushed it with a boost... because boosting it with the master very high just multiplies the problems for me. I also think this model frustrates some Helix users because a lot of other models in the Helix sound way better with default settings and are easier to tweak. But I'm happy I'm learning to handle these high gain beasts and understand better the relationship between master levels and preamp gain and all that. If I hadn't read it, I wouldn't have thought of turning the master that far down to clean up the muddiness. Thanks for your videos!
Very good video. Having never owned or played through a "real" Marshall I didn't have a real frame of reference to compare against. I liked the sound of your Marshall Studio much better than the Helix version until you made the minor tweaks, then suddenly they sounded much closer to each other and the Helix tone was much improved. That shows that even if you don't like the delivered tone of a Helix amp it is pretty easy to make a few small adjustments to get something very usable sounding. Thanks for the demo.
The 2204's Gain reduction and Cab's 6.5k Hi Cut attenuation were just what was needed to bring the Joe Walsh-esq lead sample into a very close proximity of what the comparison physical amp sounds like. This perfectly demonstrates the flexibility of what the Helix provides to users willing to learn and understand how the Helix's numerous parameters interact to achieve their desired results! Sadly far too many Helix users expect a plug and play clone experience from Helix Modeled amps, cabs, and fx. The reality is that home cook'in is always the best method!
Yep, you have to taylor your tones for your guitars and power amp speaker setup. Ballpark sounds are okay I guess and it's nice to have some effect templates for different sounds but amp, EQ, compression etc will always depend on YOUR rig. Nothing is more satisfying than tweaking and stumbling upon a really cool inspiring tone, hitting the save button and coming up with a cool name for it.
It's definitely not the best model in the Helix. I'd really like Line 6 to go back and remodel it (or a different physical example of one, I'm sure Line 6 can afford to pick one up😁), like they did with the RAT pedal. It has a bit of the correct character, but there's definitely something missing.
I find that the High Cut setting on the Cab Block is critical for getting close to an "authentic" sound. The frequency range of a JCM 800 Celestion G12T 75 Speaker is 80-5,000 Hz. I get good results by changing the Cab Block "default" High Cut of 8kHz on my HX Stomp to about 5khz first, then dial in the Amp Block to my taste.
Pure genius! I really enjoyed this. What you did is what I was thinking you should do. And for me that’s close enough. I really appreciate your videos and thank you.
I thunk the amp model sits in the mix the way it is intended. I use PodGo and recently got a helix rack for my theater gig. I really like your 2204 patch for Helix, I did some tweaking for my guitars and ears, and put the eq settings on a foot switch in the Helix-one for humbucker guitar, and one for my Strat with EMG pickups, a little bass boosted and highs rolled off for the Strat, then i hit the switch for whichever guitar I am using that night. I play in a 2000 seat theater 6 nights a week, and this sits in that mix really nicely, distorted rhythm in particular. We could argue about how "authentic" it sounds to a "real" JCM800, but as you point out-if we lined up 4 or 5 JCM800 amps, they wouldn't sound exactly like each other, either. Great work on the patch!
FWIW, Line 6 has confirmed that the 2204 they modeled was not stock. It had the bright cap clipped and a couple other component values swapped. These were common mods to the 2204 back in the day. Some may love it; some may hate it, but that’s why it doesn’t have the piercingly bright brash tone of a stock 2204 when the gain is rolled off.
That’s my go to amp live. It worked for me better than the placater which is in my opinion one of the best amps. I know it’s another hot topic but personally with third party IRS every amp will sound much better easier.
On my Helix I like to plug a patch cable in the send and return after the amp block to add cable capacitance and dull some of the harsh tones of the 2204. Could just be placebo though!
I used the 2204 model a lot. I put an EQ in front, boost 1.5K up 6dB and it just sings. Doing the dual Greenback 25 cabs with a SM57/R121 split on the mics doesn't hurt either :)
Great job on this. I play live with the Helix, I use a tube power amp and a real 2x12 w/V30 speakers. One of the amp models I use allot is the 2204, I did have to tweak it a bit but nothing drastic. I like the sound of it, and it cuts through live which is most important.
Love your scientific approach. Apart from EQ obvious differences you pointed out, the samples sound very similar to me. I.e. Very similar breakup, distortion and compression to me. Obvious they are both similar Marshall amps.
The brit 2204 is my go to....it freaking awesome...live it sounds massive...I use no eq other than what's available on the amp and cab section bit of reverb added delay and a tube screamer set to 0 for leads.. I don't drive the hell out of it as there is no need, it's got all the breakup you need at lower levels.....its just a great amp with all the Marshall vibe you could ever want..
Thanks for bringing so much perspective into this supposed debate that in a broader spectrum is about what's better, modeling or tube amps... Context is key and like you said it's never gonna be an apple's to apple's comparison. Especially in the context of the listener. The listener is most likely never gonna be in the room with the amp as the comparison is being made anyways let alone all the various filters that we're hearing the comparison through.. be it are we listening on our phones? through a Bluetooth speaker? through studio monitors or headphones? Or whatever filter RU-vid is playing the comparison video through as well... But there's always someone out there that has that perfect ear and just knows better than everybody else and boy do they love to get on their computer and make sure everybody knows it... lol
